Standby Extras
by CiderApples
Summary: Companion extras to "Standby." Currently housing: P/O non-smut smut.
1. Alternate Chapter 26: January X

_**A/N: **__This is the alternate version of chapters 26-28 of Standby (the dream sequence is exactly the same, so you can skip over that part--it's included here for continuity). This version was the first one I wrote, but I felt it was too OOC for the characters at this point in the story. I rewrote the chapters, but I decided to post this for the angst-lovers (of which I count myself one). Some passages will seem similar but this version diverges significantly. This is where you get to laugh at my writing, because I didn't spend nearly enough time editing (trying to keep writing actual, legitimate chapters of Standby instead)._

_Credit is due to "Bones" for a line towards the end--if you watch the show, you'll recognize it--forgive me for so blatantly referencing another fandom, but the line fit too well for the circumstance._

_

* * *

_

**JANUARY**

Olivia felt oddly thrilled. She took sips from the cold steel shaker that held the half of her milkshake that didn't fit in the sundae glass. Ever since they'd left the piano store she'd been jittery and up, like she'd had coffee even though she hadn't. It was Peter that was having the coffee, sitting across from her with his fingers threaded through the handle of his mug.

She was having thoughts she hadn't invited but didn't particularly mind at the moment. She imagined it came from seeing him in a different way, seeing him demonstrate an ability she'd never really observed: not that way, not like that, and the pictures of it were filling her head, except in them he had no shirt and she could see the way his back moved while he played. And from there it was a short leap to thinking of how it would be to find him naked in bed, how it might be to fuck him. A _shockingly_ short leap. Not that it stopped her from thinking. She regarded it with amusement as something novel and transient, like her mind was a wind-up toy that had leapt off the table and would stay there, kicking, until it wound down. Harmless. Diversionary. Meaningless. Surprisingly fun. She let the slideshow play.

She smiled into her milkshake as Peter watched her over their glasses. And as he kept he eyes on her, something changed that Peter noticed but Olivia did not. At first he thought it was a change in the lighting, but it wasn't. Then he thought it might have been the canned music, but he listened and realized there was no music playing. Yet something was different, and after a moment he knew it was _her. She_ looked different to him. She _felt _different to him. And then he knew. He could feel it, a ripple in the bath of her psychic overflow. It felt honest and familiar and he just knew. His smile fell.

_Just like that_, Peter thought. _After all this time, it happens just like that._

It almost made him feel bad for her, because he remembered it happening to him. He wished he could tell her it would be easier for her than it had been for him--that she had a free pass through the most of the uncertainty, the awkwardness, the hope and fear and cold-sweating in bed. If there were such thing as a sure bet, he was it.

He was struck by the thought that the piano might have been The Thing That Did It, and that this moment--the two of them so casually dropping time in the diner--was already beyond The Point of No Return. And despite having tried for this outcome, despite having given her space to become comfortable, having carved out a path for her, he felt worried. What if it hadn't been slow enough? Sometime soon they would reach the point at which half of everything would be up to her, and as recently as ten days ago she'd left the room when he told her he loved her; _that_ scared the everloving shit out of him, but there was nothing he could do.

It was hard for her to fail. It was hard for _him_ to fail, but she was worse. She took nothing in stride, she took everything personally and she could carry a grudge like a battle-axe. When it happened--and it was going to--if she failed to control the situation to her satisfaction, she might never try again.

Peter watched her face. She hadn't realized yet that she was on a road with no turnoffs, that she'd passed the last fork an hour ago. He could tell because she wasn't suppressing anything, hadn't come to see that she wouldn't be able to put it away if she tried. Once she saw that, he would see stress on her face, feel her panic during the long hours she would spend trying to talk herself down. But there was none of that yet, just the flush over her cheeks and her eyes a little brighter than usual, pupils wide and dark as she glanced around the mirrored walls. He was desperately tempted to forego the effort of the mental blinders she begged him to wear; he wanted to see the specifics that made her stare off toward the counter, unfocused and with a look on her face he hadn't seen nearly enough.

He wouldn't, though. He was pushing her boundaries enough by not telling her that he would always sense her in part, that even a radio picks up static when not tuned to a station. He felt her giddiness and her thrill at being secretly daring, seeing him _like that_ while he sat across from her, drinking coffee and pulling apart a chocolate croissant with his hands. It didn't take a genius nor a mind-reader to pick up sexual overtones: she was glazed over like a hot donut. But the other parts, possibly the more revealing parts--exhilaration, excitement, willful ignorance--they required special skills to discern. Which he had. And thank god she didn't know he knew, or he'd already be a dead man.

Olivia's attention flickered back to Peter for a moment and she saw that he was no longer smiling, concentrating on something.

"What's wrong?" she asked him. He tried to post his smile again but his effort wasn't very good. He stirred his coffee though he hadn't added anything.

"Just thinking," he said. She watched him. _About?_

He put his spoon down. He couldn't speak to the fear she would have, because she didn't have it yet. There were so many things he wanted to say that would have to wait for a precise moment in the future, probably the very near future. But her fate tugged at his chest because he had fought through all of it himself, months ago, and it had been hard.

"'Livia," he said. He knew it would get him a weird look from her but he reached for her hand under the table and held it in both of his. That weird look appeared as if on cue but he looked back at her as benevolently as he could. He chose his words carefully, hoping she would remember. "I'm glad you're here."

She smiled wide, tilting her head down to look up at him coquettishly. She was bold with illicit thoughts. _Sweetheart,_ Peter thought, _give it an hour to sink in._

"Me too," she said.

* * *

_Oh, fuck this,_ she was thinking. She couldn't turn it off. Something in her really didn't want to and she couldn't convince it otherwise. She watched the mirror with a sort of sinking dread. She was going to have to go sleep with him. Not like that. In his bed. _Their_ bed. _FUCK._

Her chest would not. stop. flushing. She didn't understand. It had been an hour, _max_, of innocent smut. Fantasies anyone would have about him. Because he looked the way he looked. He was the way he was. He'd played that piano and now things were going south.

She'd always been able to turn it off; she was a _special_ agent for a reason, and that reason was that she was in complete control of the situation at all times. Any situation. All of the time.

She was going to take an axe to that piano.

The terrible thought occurred to her that he could have _made_ her want him, could have gotten inside her head. But he wouldn't. He had to be the person who wouldn't. She couldn't lose that faith or she'd have to leave the house she called home and never come back.

_Olivia. Stop._ She thought it hard, looking herself in the eyes through the mirror.

"It's fine," she whispered. "You're fine, everything's fine."  
_  
_And even as she watched her own green irises wick up the ink of her pupils, the thought of his naked chest pressing up against her back made her lips open haphazardly.

"Stop," she whispered, and it was both her order to herself and her part in the vivid, momentary image. _Stop. And he doesn't. _

She argued with herself. He'd said he loved her. He'd said he _loved _her. He'd kissed her and he'd held her and she wasn't sure how much more she could ask for as far as signs went, but it still wasn't sitting right. It wasn't safe. It wasn't sure. _She_ wasn't sure.

She swept an astringent-soaked cotton pad viciously over her face. She scowled at the mirror and went down the hall to their room, where she peered around the corner and saw him in bed. There was no good excuse for her sleeping on the couch or it would have immediately come out of her mouth. He looked up. He looked serious.

"Hey," he said, and it sounded like he was addressing someone to whom something terrible had happened. He was wearing a shirt to bed, a shirt with long sleeves, which was strange, but she was grateful. It was like he knew. But she couldn't think that. _No_. "Ready?" he asked, and she nodded soundlessly.

She slipped in next to him and the heat that he had generated seemed greater than usual, though maybe it was her. He went to put his arm over her (_forgive me, but it would be too different if I didn't) _and it was like he didn't notice how fast her heart was beating. She folded her arms weakly up over his.

"Goodnight, Peter," she said. She hoped it was a good balance between nonchalant and affectionate.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he said, that note of sympathy still hanging in his voice.

* * *

There was a piano in her dream. A man was playing, but instead of piano sounds there were calliope sounds, like the circus. A conveyor belt came from the back of the piano, and on the belt little ice cream sundaes emerged from the sounding board. It was Peter but it wasn't Peter doing the playing. Then it was a stranger playing, and Peter was in front of her, taking sundaes off the belt and putting them into her hands. They disappeared as he replaced them, her palms staying perfectly empty.

Then he lost focus, looking at her instead of his work. The conveyor belt accelerated and the ice creams began to pile up, smashing together and jamming. She looked at Peter accusingly but he didn't even care that there was ice cream everywhere. He stepped toward her and suddenly he was wearing nothing, motherfucking _nothing_, and she put her hands out to push him away but they wouldn't reach him, no matter how far she pushed.

"It's okay," he was repeating. "It's just ice cream."

But it was messy and it was everywhere.

"Peter," she protested. Ice cream was hitting the floor in half-melted scoops. Vanilla and chocolate beneath her feet. She wasn't wearing shoes; it was sticky but counter-intuitively warm.

"'Livia, come up here," he said to her, and she saw that there were stairs to a door she hadn't noticed. He put out a hand to her and she took it and they went through the door and ended up in the lab at Harvard. She wasn't surprised. The sensory deprivation tank was in the middle of the room. She went straight to it.

"Help me," she said, pulling the heavy doors open. Peter stood behind her, watching. Olivia walked into the tank and lay down in the water; the electrodes had at some point become attached to her skin, and she could hear the beep-beep-tick of the monitors from somewhere outside. Peter stood in silhouette above her, looking down. He had his arms outstretched, his hands on the doors, but instead of closing them on her, he came inside and closed them behind him.

In the opaque darkness Olivia could hear the faint dips of his limbs into the water, the ripples of his movement lapping at the parts of her skin not submerged. Then his legs came together between hers and the rest of him brushed over her, invisible. She could hear herself breathing but he was quieter, and she only knew he was there because she could feel his exhales on her lips. Though everything seemed irregular and out of place she wanted to kiss him, so she tilted her head up and did it and it was like shooting an arrow into the sun, his body falling like the sky upon her.

She felt his hand touch the back of her neck--a spreading heat there--but then she felt both hands her shoulders and knew it was impossible. Yet the warmth over her spine was unmistakable, palm-shaped, and she was confused until it spread deeper, under her skin and into her head, and she started to feel little pings in her back as he learned how to do what she realized he was doing. At first it was almost haphazard, hit-or-miss, figuring out which lines led to her fingers and which led to her toes. Little sensory bomb drops exploded in her elbow, her thigh, her side. But he was a genius, and he learned fast, splitting the signals finer and finer.

In minutes he was directing with such acuity that she didn't quite know how to feel about it. His hands were absolutely still, resting unmoved on her shoulders, but she felt as clearly as anything the piquing of nerves in places he'd never actually seen, places still covered by layers of cloth. It felt strange but it felt good.

"I didn't know you could--" she whispered. She stopped short of saying what she thought he was doing. Peter was silent in the dark and she didn't know where he was looking or what his face looked like. Was he doing this for her, for himself or to prove he could do it? She put her hands between their pushed-together chests, a useless barrier to make herself feel less defenseless, but she didn't ask him to stop because she didn't want him to.

In fact it was becoming imperative that he continue. He was spreading his reach like bleeding ink, soaking through her nerves and she was seeing things in the dark: bright things, beautiful things, strings and spots of light.

"Peter," she whispered. "Oh my god." She was past self-consciousness.

Her back arched. She reached for him to stabilize herself and all she felt was skin. His touch exploded in her head, the inkwell overturned on her brain. She started to shake.

"Peter," she gasped. He lowered his head to hers. She could feel him smiling.

* * *

She woke up through a shivering orgasm. In the seconds it took her to claw her way fully out of sleep, Peter blinked awake as well. She posed in a stretch, embarrassed, hiding her face.

"'Livia," Peter said. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head and panic iced her stomach. She glanced over at him, keeping her face as even as she could. He was looking at her with wide eyes, asking her something without speaking the question. She gave nothing away. After a minute his expression faded and he turned away from her. "Nothing. Weird dream." He waved his hand over his head, clearing his mind. "Morning," he said.

"Yeah," she said, dazed, and she rolled out of bed abruptly. She mumbled something about being first in the shower and then she was gone.

Peter made a rough, debased sound and rubbed his hands over his face. _Oh my god, _he thought. _Oh my god._


	2. Alternate Chapter 27 & 28: Jan XI & XII

**JANUARY**

She couldn't believe she was going to ask him to do this.

It was his fault; he had to know that.

This morning she'd woken up from the dream, possessed. He'd been inside her head from three feet away. The more she thought about it, the less she could convince herself that he hadn't done it. He _had_ to have done it, consciously or not. Which meant he _could _do it, and could do it _again_. The more she pondered it, the more firmly she decided it could be an almost perfect solution to the attraction she felt--and to the attraction he had made clear he felt towards her. Removed from the physical, it would be so detached and simple, incapable of destroying their lives with complex entanglements.

She went looking and she found him in their room.

He was sitting up in bed, those sleek shoulders curled around a book. She didn't care what book it was. He was so goddamn good to look at.

She paused at the door and he waited for her to say something, watching with an open expression.

"Peter," she said. _I don't know how to ask for this, _she thought.

Peter's skin glimmered silently, a testament to her apprehension. She knotted her hands. She wanted him to infer, to save her the indignity of specification, yet all he gave her was his unwavering focus. She couldn't tell_ if_ or _how_ he was reading her, just hoped fervently that he was. With a deep breath she pushed her thoughts to the surface, waiting for him to skim them, to take them up and, through them, understand her. She wanted him to, for once.

Then, looking closer, she realized he'd already done it. Maybe before she'd even entered the room. His wide pupils. The tension across his chest. The face that was suddenly very difficult to watch in its false neutrality_._ She glanced away toward the lines of his body, inventing the vectors that disappeared under his blankets. She felt like she knew them all, though she'd never had her hands on him that way and didn't intend to. That old feeling of inevitability had been following her around like a ghost; it was probably the only justification that would make tonight's display bearable to her when she looked back upon it. Her nerves were humming like a tuning fork.

Peter put the book aside without saving his place. Maybe he hadn't even been reading. Maybe the book had been a decoy, an Olivia-blind, meant to lure her close enough before she got scared and bolted. It made her wonder how good he really was: how quickly had he discovered that she'd decided to ask? Was it before lunch? On the ride home? For god's sake, _yesterday, _before she even knew herself_? _Magnificent liar that he was, she hadn't had a clue.

Then she felt him invisibly on her back, his mental touch more like a curling wind than the force she'd expected. She didn't remember it being so gentle, so controlled. It was like a caress, and that took her aback. He looked at her with the simplest of questions: _coming or going? Yes or no?_ And, as it seemed was always there: _I love you_, which wasn't a question at all but answered several of hers. She moved forward. The push at her back was firing a set of neurons she thought he'd take longer to get to. She was weaving on her feet, she knew it, and she might have been embarrassed but he was fixing her with those blisteringly intelligent eyes and who was she to argue? He was the sphinx, inviting her into riddles she would be lost trying to solve.

She got close to him and he made no motion to draw back the blankets. Instead he opened his arms and let her lift her feet to climb upon the mattress, her knees across his thighs and her face filled with nervous hope. It was not something she did, showing hope on her face. It wasn't something she did, showing _anything_ on her face. He looked up at her inscrutably, his eyes were as sharp and penetrating as they'd ever been, studying not her face but something beneath it. She wanted him to say something just so she wouldn't be the last one who'd said something, but it was increasingly clear he wasn't going to give her that satisfaction.

He let her sit there for a long moment. He knew she was waiting, expecting him to move on her desires, but he wanted his moment with nothing in the way. No diversion--even of his own making--that would steal his focus.

He held her hands still, telling her in no uncertain terms that she could give him a minute at least because it was all he was asking. As heated as she was, she looked down at him directly and agreed with her stillness and his face broke her heart a million times over. That boy's face. The face she woke up to. The face that was making her want to abandon this and just go to sleep, his voice vibrating against the back of her neck and his arms around her. Of course, that whole business was part of the problem: she was filled to capacity with iterations of that face. It had made her promises she had waited long enough to call. She had waited long enough to admit she wanted to call them.

He was a beautiful man. She thought that she regretted that he was wearing a shirt, and, as if on cue, he took it off. Her vision filled with honey-white skin, his slight build relaxed over a cloud of pillows. Olivia's head dipped involuntarily toward his chest, just slightly, and she bit her lip which Peter noted with no small satisfaction.

_Peter. _It echoed in her heart, more in images than words: Peter comforting her against his chest. Peter laying with her under blankets in an ice-cold room. Peter, just Peter, his sweet, guarded face watching her do ridiculous things and hoping against hope that she'd succeed. And honestly, as tame and clothed as these things were they only added to the vertical drop of her stomach as her vision clung to his half-naked body. She was trying hard not to go further, not to throw away her last vestiges of cover; he was staring at her and he could know every thought she had if he only tried, and it just seemed so futile to pretend otherwise.

It crossed her mind at that moment that the things she would be most afraid of him knowing had already been given away when she came into the room, wanting what she wanted. There was no more damage to do. With that, she gave up trying to censor herself and the images came in a flood, images she didn't control but hungrily consumed: his lithe body in nothing but boxers in bed beside her, the intimate slide of his long leg between hers as they fell asleep, a kiss in a dark car with lips that tasted like ice cream_._

Apparently he _was _listening, which she had ambivalently expected after all, and he found no faults with her catalogue. He stretched up off his pillows and she just folded toward their intersection with a barely-open mouth.

She held back a sigh, afraid it would be be his name, and his body came up behind the lips that found hers. Those long arms were leveraged against her and every pound of pressure was a measure of his approval. He kissed her slowly, more relaxed than either of them felt. He was so comfortable with physical affection, unafraid to be graceful, knowing instinctively where to lay his hands. He hypnotized her with sequences of touch. For minutes she was content to exist in that covenant, participating in the languid exchange because it was unfolding so delicately in front of her, but she grew impatient with him. She pushed harder, she kissed deeper, she _thought _at him in bold italics, and all she got in return was an enveloping push back that set her upright and disconnected them at nearly every point of contact. _Come on, Peter._

She straddled his hips, staring at him while he held her a foot away. He had the strangest expression on his face. Sad and happy together. She didn't know what he was waiting for.

"I'm not going to do what you want me to do," he said, that sad smile never dropping. The confidence she'd gained since he'd kissed her melted right away. _God _damn _it, _she thought. He was still holding her with the thing she couldn't see; it was wrapped around her like a sling. He was smart enough not to use his hands. She didn't bother saying _let go_.

"You don't really want that," he said, and it sounded like he was pleading. She was glaring at the bedspread. He had five seconds before she'd set it on fire. Let's see what he'd think she wanted _then._

"Peter," she growled. She could feel the hair on her arms rising. She let the anger radiate from her like a solar flare, and she saw him flinch.

Suddenly, she felt penetratingly calm. She looked at Peter, hurt and surprised. _He wouldn't._ But he was. The calm was spreading through her and there was nothing she could do. "Don't you do this," she said, almost helplessly mellow. She searched desperately for her rage, the rage he was replacing with a calm she didn't want to feel, but it was just _gone_. She sat on his lap, watching him neutrally. "Fuck you, Peter," she said, and it sounded like passing conversation. He felt bad for robbing her of what really was righteous anger, but it was just easier to put out little fires than big ones. Metaphorically _and _literally.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he did look remorseful, "but I know you, and I know I've got _one time_ that you're ever going to try this."

Olivia hung her head. _Try this_. Like it was some cheap ploy. She'd assumed this would be much easier. Hadn't he said he loved her?

"And sweetheart, this is _not _gonna be how it goes." He ducked his own head, trying to pull her gaze up from the abyss. "You can't have the memory before the real thing. It doesn't work that way," he said. He was...something unfamiliar. Something that didn't sound right on him. Afraid. _Whatever_. She was doing her best to block out his voice but she jumped when his hand touched her cheek, his palm across her face in a breathtakingly gentle hold. He didn't try to move her, just let the warmth work into her skin where she was cold with disappointment.

She wished he wouldn't touch her like that for the same reason she wanted this thing he wouldn't give her.

They didn't _have _to touch. At least, not so much. He'd shown her that much in their dream. It was as safe a solution as she would ever be able to come up with: it would be so easy to compartmentalize something that would only ever exist in her head. It might take some effort for him, but he loved a goddamn challenge. All he had to do was send the thoughts her way and then it could be over and done until the next time. And there didn't_have _to be a next time; that was the beauty of the thing. It could be fun and exciting and it could feel fantastic and then they could go back to how things were.

But she would not be able to deny her body, if they went the other way. Her body didn't lie, didn't forget. It still felt every blow her father had ever laid upon her. It felt the emptiness of loss and regret and mistakes. It would feel his glimmer, and it would remind her every day that he could be gone in a second. She would go to their shared bed with an existential fear, a fear proportionate to how good it would feel to be with him. She shuddered to think, _really _shuddered, and he leaned forward to hold her again.

"Don't be scared," he whispered. She was trying, and at the same time denying she felt fear at all.

"You don't know what I want," she said bitterly, the comment weak and out of place. It didn't even make sense; he knew her _verbatim_. His arms tightened reflexively around her, so much that for a moment she lost her breath.

"You think that's true?" he asked, though it was clear to him she didn't really. She gave no answer. He didn't know why this was so hard. It could be so easy, so good, but she always had to fight.

She sighed into his neck. She didn't say anything for a long time.

"You can change my mind," she whispered finally, and he knew she meant it literally. He could make her unafraid. He could make her see past the risks. She didn't pull away to see his face. She didn't want to see him disagreeing with her like she knew he would, on principle. He shook his head gently against her neck.

"No," he said. He didn't bother to elaborate. In the end she'd be willing or she wouldn't, and the decision would be hers and not because he sucked the fear out of her. Anger was one thing; useless, pointless, antagonistic. But she got to be afraid, like everyone else. He wondered if she has been so resistant with John. _Of course not._ She wasn't living with John. More importantly, John wasn't already holding a piece of her soul in his hand when he got around to kissing her for the first time.

_"Peter, come on_," she said.

"The things you risk _every day_," Peter said suddenly, "are so much more important than this. Your life. My life. But you risk it! Why not now?"

Her lip curled angrily. He was getting there, too; his face was darker with every passing minute.

"You come in here and you want me to do this thing, you want me to _mess around in your head_ but you're afraid that I'll _touch _you," he growled. "Think of how that might feel to me."  
_  
_She stayed mute.

"What indication have I not given you? What point have I not yielded?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "'Livia," he said quietly. He had no idea what else to tell her. He began to think that he'd been wrong, that she was nowhere near wanting him like he wanted her. He _was_ wrong. She wanted him more than he'd imagined.

"You said we had a 'family unit,' here," she said. "_My_ family was violent. _My_ family splintered."

"It doesn't have to be that way."

"No," she stopped him. "You're not understanding." Peter was confused. There weren't many things in the world he didn't understand. "My family was dysfunctional, sure," she said, "but my father never fails with that card on my birthday."

"Then--"

"Family is good," she said. "The more fucked-up we are, the more fucked-up things we see, the stronger we'll be."

Peter looked disdainfully at the ceiling. "Yeah, I guess that's one completely twisted way to look at something good."

"I want to be your family. You don't _sleep_ with your family. If you sleep with me, then what am I?"

Peter looked at her, biting his lip tiredly. He almost said _too much goddamn work,_ but he didn't because despite his frustration, he almost knew how she felt. He'd spent years, decades, running from his father, only to feel just as responsible and bound when he saw him again. Those bonds would never break, no matter how hard he tried to erode them. Sometimes he felt they'd only grown stronger in his absence. He could never leave his family, not really. But women? He'd been on the run with several, and he could remember maybe half of their names on a good day. Olivia was different, but she had no way to know that. Unless he told her.

"There are different kinds of families," Peter said.

"Yeah," she said, head downturned.

"We have a good one," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up, her gaze wavering. The conversation had become so strange and surreal that it was almost too easy to say honest things.

"But it's _yours_," she whispered. "Yours and Walter's." She blinked. "You include me. Which is nice. But."

"No," he said, "that's not..." He squeezed the hand on her shoulder as he shut his eyes to think. Olivia waited. He opened his eyes, licked his lips. "Sweetheart," he said. "You've got this thing wrong. You're not 'included.' You just _are._" His hand dropped from her shoulder to gently touch the long stripes of hair that fell around her face. "You're not a colleague or a piece of lab equipment. I mean, even if you were, you've seen how attached Walter gets to his lab equipment." That made her smile. "But you're _us,_" he emphasized. "It's not our choice to take you or leave you; it's your choice to stay or go."

Olivia put her fingers up to touch Peter's through her hair. He clasped her hand in his and brought it down to his lap.

"If we do this, and it goes bad--and I don't think it will--then it'll be messy and ugly but we're still going to be family. And we can be ugly all we want, and if we stop speaking to each other we'll be like the two unfriendly aunts at the family reunion," he said. "Is this reassuring you or am I making it worse?"

She was smiling. "Honestly, I'm not sure," she said, but he was leaning forward to kiss her and she was leaning forward too.

"And I'm not sure what the definition of 'overachiever' becomes in the Bishop household, but I'm pretty sure you've earned that title," he said just before he touched her lips. She laughed quietly against his mouth, and the vibrations brought him right back to the place where he was hungry for her, the place he'd been when she'd come into the room in the first place. His hands flattened tightly around her back and he kissed her fiercely.


	3. Olivia Plays

_A/N: Having to watch the whole breakfast in bed thing made me rage. In response, here's some non-smut smut (?) that would fit into Standby if it weren't so...smutty. Yeah, I don't know. I would place this in February, definitely._

* * *

He's not okay.

He's so not okay he can barely see.

He makes it up the front steps and that's lucky, but not as lucky as having made it home in the car. He's going to rake her over coals for this - he firmly intends to - but it's going to have to wait because he can't think straight, can't think of an opening line let alone the rest of the dressing-down she deserves.

He's stopped at his own front door and he's lost his mind so entirely that he's not opening it, just staring at it like it's supposed to do something on its own, and while he's face-to-face with wood and paint she jolts him again. She's been doing it all fucking afternoon. _All. Fucking. Day. _ And in the beginning it'd seemed fun and funny but she'd escalated. Everything is aching. His nerves are splitting and curling back on themselves and he can't remember the last time he's taken a deep breath, which is probably why his head feels so fuzzy and weird.

The next one takes his knees out for a second, they give forward in a feeble little bend and he's bracing himself against the solid exterior siding and whispering _fuck_ at the same time that he shuts his eyes and lets his mouth hang open after the word pushes through. He's so, _so_ glad it's dark, and he's so, _so_ glad he isn't still in the car because he might have killed someone_. _

It's incredible, what she does, and it's easier to appreciate when he doesn't feel like her chew-toy, but she's relentless and he guesses she's either half past desperate or just having fun. He's starting to think that _talent_ is too innocuous a word for what she can do. And really, it's _his_ damned talent she's exploiting here, but she's so damned good at it.

He clings to the siding and his abdominals knit and the thing that used to be a saucy tingling at 3pm now carries serious amperage through his hips. The muscles at the back of his neck are trembling at a high pitch and that's new, that's never happened before but it feels like emptiness and need. _Jesus Christ_ but if she doesn't stop, he's not going to _get _upstairs and she's not going to get what she wants at all.

She lets up, like she can hear him. But she won't hear him, he knows that much, because turnabout was the first fair-fucking-play he'd gone for and he was infuriated to learn that she was perfectly capable of freezing him out: one hell of a reversal of fortune.

And, okay, fine, maybe it would have been easier to just _take care of it_ back at the lab, or even in the car (though that might have been slightly less appropriate), but first of all, he's not sure how much that would actually help, considering the real situation is in his brain stem and not his dick. Second of all, he's been suffering through this torturous build-up for hours and he's not about to throw the reward away for a minute of rote satisfaction. And he says 'suffering' and 'torturous,' and he's _going_ to say those things, but it might be a little bit possible that this is the hottest thing he can imagine, and that maybe he's _slightly _complicit despite the inherent masochism.

_Slightly. _

_Sure._

She gives him three seconds. And three seconds are surprisingly long, which he hadn't realized until he found he was able to get the front door open and ascend the entire staircase in that time. Then he's in the hallway and it doesn't really matter what juju she's throwing at him, because he's steps from their room and he imagines her as he pushes closer. He feels every muscle moving, every tendon in agreement, and he's feeling better and better the nearer he gets to the bedroom door.

By the time he has his hand on the doorknob he's standing up straight, leading with his chest, burning ahead with his eyes.

By the time he reaches the bed he's gasping so obscenely that she breaks into an open-mouthed grin and holds out her hands.

"Took your sweet time," she accuses.

He doesn't say anything at all.


End file.
